


ROSES AND REBELLIO>f 




ROBERT DeCAMP LELAND 



Roses and Rebellion 



ROSES AND REBELLION 

By Robert DeCamp Leland 

11 




BOSTON 

The Four Seas Company 
1917 






Copyright, 1917, by 
The Four Seas Company 



MAR -6 1918 

The Four Seas Press 
Boston Mass., U. S. A. 

©CI.A481926 



Roses and Rebellion 



ETHICS 

Vagabond lips and vagabond hearts- — 

You and I, dear, 

Troubled about the traffic of the world 

As a bird is troubled to sing. 

Vagabonds down the road of life, 

With a glad song on our lips. 

And rebellion in our hearts. 

Flower of passion, 

Tender hands touching mine softly. 

Child of revolt, 

Red lips fast upon mine 

Fervently teaching youth a new measure. 

Beauty, beauty! 

To hell with all else. 

Qinging hands and burning kisses 

Under an August moon. 

Give me your lips, sweet, 

And tell me where morality has vanished. 

Daughter of Omar, I salute you! 



[7] 



ALLURE 

Elsa girl 

I love you this much, dear, 

That even when in some other best 

beloved's arms. 
And passion would have seemed to have 

melted memory away, 
I still can hear your voice, and see your 

eyes, and feel your arms about me; 
And sense again the lure and flair of you, 
Divine, eternal. 



[8] 



ROAD^S END 

Spring here in Boston — looking down 
from the park, and no hand in mine to 
lighten the haunting pathos of dying mem- 
ories and dying loves. A sob in my throat, 
thinking of the past so bright, so soon 
ended ; of joys and pleasures that might have 
been. Dreamed of, suffered for, but never 
realized. Across the path two lovers happy 
in each other, looking toward thie future 
with eager, confident eyes. A silent prayer 
that their love may not turn as bitter as 
did mine. His hand in hers, holding her 
close; her trusting eyes looking ever into 
his. Could they but know — perhaps they 
would be happy. The commonplace is al- 
ways happy. And God knows I did not 
want that. Seeking ever, but never finding 
— chasing the sweet chimeras of youth, all 
too swiftly fading. And then had romance 
vanished? Purchased love, minted kisses, 
or this, the everlasting commonplace of life : 
a preacher's words, a band of gold, five 

[9] 



brawling children in a parlor flat. Quarrels 
and kisses and the butcher to be paid. But 
no lamenting from the bitter truth. I will 
go down to Max's and drown my sorrow 
for a time. Glass upon glass and Edith, 
Edna and Gertrude spilling their small- 
talk in my ears — of clothes and food, of 
last night's ride, of petty conquests; and 
so an end to Romance. 



[lO] 



SARIA 

Glad heart, 

I have your picture here tonight; 

The one you gave me in December 

The day you gave yourself. 

That winter, once so fair, so poignant now, 

I Hve again this hour 

Reading once more the vivid beauty that 

was yours — 
The faded lines you penned beneath 
"Glad heart/' 

My heart is torn and broken 
At this ruin that the years have made. 
Life is a drifting on a storm-tossed sea — 
Purposeless we come, purposeless we go. 
The only law of years. 
Saria, a tear has fallen on your picture. 
And my heart is bitter with grief. 
How happy we were then, dear heart, 
When we fared down the road of youth 
And happiness. 



[II] 



MOTIF FROM MENDELSSOHN 

How I want you, dear. I am so lonely 
. . . Do you know what it is to be lonely 
in June, alone and friendless and all the 
world bright about you? If you did, I think 
you would come. Spring is here again, 
mingling its elusive beauty and sweetness 
with the poignant remorse of vain desires, 
of life without end or purpose. The birds 
echo it, the flowers turn it almost into tears 
... I desire, I want . . . and yet . . . lonely, 
the inescapable loneliness of the soul . . . 
It is all the same — in the clamor of the city 
or the calm of the country . . . Won't you 
come, dear? I won't ask you to hold hands 
or take you to dances at evening and escort 
you home piously ... I have had all that 
I want here in this narrow town. I am 
fettered, suffocated with their smug, dreary 
conventions ... You will know what to do. 
I am all alone here for weeks. My study 
window is open to the light coolness of the 
evening, my books untouched, dusty on 

[12] 



their shelves, and my heart sad, burdened 
with a thousand vague regrets. Why did I 
ever let you go from my sight, you who 
have been so much to me all these years? 
Darling, we will be happy one in one, heart 
to heart, and hand in hand. Out of the 
sweet ecstasies of passion we'll fashion a 
wonder love that will live forever, glori- 
ously, majestically over into that world that 
ever stands before us, horrible, empty, pur- 
poseless ... I close my eyes and see you 
entering the room, stealing up softly to sur- 
prise me. Then your light step. I turn and 
your arms go about me tenderly. I can 
hear your whisper softly as of old: *'My 
boy, my lover." Your lips fasten madly to 
mine, your eyes closed and your arms 
tighter about me. How well we know each 
other. Together, you and I, all the riddles 
of the world fall away, all the doub tings 
and sorrow. And in each other we are 
happy. Heart of my heart, you must 
come . . . 

[13] 



AND ONE THERE WAS 

Evening and April and crowds passing by 

And only loneliness in my heart. 

Faded the bright hopes and all that we held 

dear 
Before Fate tore our souls apart 
And made life bitterness. 
Sorrow hiding in the mask of happiness, 
Hate where love had been. 
Evening and April and crowds passing by 
And only loneliness in my heart. 



[14] 



SYNCOPATION 

What do we care for rule or law or 
prim decorum. Life only as a means to 
beauty. Let us turn the temples of the 
puritans into dance halls and lead the surg- 
ing revolt of the hour. The old rules 
perish of dry-rot, the orchestra's playing a 
new fox-trot. Singing, singing, lilting along 
to the lure of the hour, clinging, clinging, 
kisses as youth's own dower. Ah, let's not 
argue, life w^ere far too short; a thousand 
creeds are born and are forgotten in half 
the time it takes our lips to meet. A fig 
for aspiration. Living and loving gayly, 
tasting each joy as it comes, finding a new 
at the pass of the old. Night. The city. 
Lights, laughter and song. Hand in hand 
from table to table. Day on the turnpike. 
Whirling along from tavern to tavern. 
Evening. Under the stars. Your hand in 
mine, soft, passionate whispering . . . This 
is the life, dear, for you and for me. And 
what shall we care if we part on the 

Us] 



morrow; tonight is our night, dear, damn 
care and damn sorrow. Oh, how I love 
you. Dear boy, take me novv^, dear. Kiss 
me, sweet. Do you love me? My heart is 
my vow, dear. Transport of passion, sweet 
daughter of Eve, dear. We're happy, this 
only we care or believe, dear . . . Give me 
the lights, the laughter and the not-to- 
reason-v/hy, a smile, a kiss, love hand in 
hand beneath an August sky. The glamour 
of the passing show, life vibrant, vivid, 
gay; a rose to care we buried there that 
wonder night in May . . . 



[i6] 



THEY SAY 

Mona mine, they're flinging our names 

about, 
Talk of the town, 
Little girl of the golden hair 
And the dancing blue, wanton eyes. 
They're dancing now at this latest jest — 
For jesting it is to us — a mirthful fancy — 
We who have lived and loved and suffered 
And rejoiced so much 
That all else seems trivial — 
Mostly their gutter-gibbering. 



[17] 



EPISODE IN AUGUST 

A phonograph hlting rag in the distance. 
You and I beneath the stars — a sob in the 
throat reaUzing you were no different than 
your sisters, that always I must follow the 
road alone. A falling star, the lights of the 
ships at sea, the surf singing at our feet, 
the pressure of your breast against mine, 
your fair lips eager for caresses. Gently I 
bent down, our lips met, but the old thrill 
had gone. I wanted to laugh softly, satiri- 
cally at what you thought the grandeur of 
passion. How insipid it all was. How 
ridiculous and stupid. Calling me "Dear 
boy'' and stroking my hair tenderly. It 
would end the same way. Desire and denial. 
Child of convention and taboo. Better a 
cold parting than tears of bitterness and 
regret . . . Well then, we would part. 



[i8] 



INDIAN SUMMER 

When I held you close, 

And you put your wan, tired face to mine 

So eagerly, so confidently, 

I wonder if you knew ... 

Had you but pressed your lips to mine 

A moment longer 

Smiling sweetly up at me, 

I should have spoken out the truth 

Savagely ; 

Wiping that smile of yours into the mire 

And made your little world go tumbling 

down about you. 
How much now for your fabled intuition? 
My love for you died 
Many months ago. 



[i9l 



QUEST 

Romance fading away tonight, heart of 
my heart, cherie. Lonely and desolate we 
go down the years when love should rule. 
Say it's not so, that love has cooled, that 
your lips are cold for kisses. Darling ! Sad 
is this world, bitter and futile days when 
love will not understand, when one tired 
heart gropes on in loneliness for the love 
that never comes . . . Looking back over 
the petty conquests, the purchased loves, 
the horrors of matrimony, searching ever, 
never finding the soul's true mate ; the touch 
of a hand in comradeship, trembling with 
yours at the pass of years, a heart that 
leaps with yours to the melody of youth . . . 
Rejoicing at my victories, sobbing on my 
shoulder at the failures . . . ever beside me 
. . . worshiping neither church nor fashion 
. . . seeking no legality to our union . . . 
asking no other happiness than the love of 
the moment — which is the only love eternal 
— loving me passionately, utterly, madly. 

[20] 



Stranger ever among her sisters as I am 
stranger among men . . . ready to fight for 
me savagely against all the world — though I 
be wrong as hell — foe to convention, brave 
reveler in the bright springtime of love . . . 
my dreams her dreams, my hopes her 
hopes, my sins her sins . . . Romance fad- 
ing away tonight, heart of my heart, cherie. 



[21] 



THE POETRY SOCIETY 

The long-drawn strophes of an age-worn 
creed, the sycophant poets strumming still 
the vague, the colorless, the dead. The 
dreary intonations cut to the classic mode, 
purposeless, correct, and empty as a wine- 
cellar at a week-end party. Breathing no 
vision or semblance of life, canned thought, 
embalmed when even Homer first took pen. 
Listless, correct, cold, futile things that 
pass for art, and still are praised by all the 
dolt professors. 



[22] 



NOISE 

Gabble, gabble from the rabble, 

Sibilant tongues whispering endlessly. 

Prating boldly, 

Lying eagerly. 

In constant unison over this-nothing and 

that-nothing. 
Babble, babble from the rabble 
Endlessly. 



[23] 



ILLICIA 

Lower the crape 

From the door of the house of my sorrow 

And let us steal down to our mansion of 

love — 
There by the river of joy and of beauty. 

Light all the candles in the chamber of 

passion, 
Spreading roses and incense on the coverlet. 

There we'll be happy, 

Alone with our laughter. 

Alone with our sinning. 

The walls will keep silence, and all of the 

glory 
And beauty of loving 
Will ne'er be recorded, 
Save where it is branded and stamped in 

our hearts. 



[24] 



FROM THE BOOK OF OMAR 

Put your lips up for a kiss 

Madly then 

Let passion sear us through and through — 

No sweeter pain than that. 

Your arms go tighter, your heart beats 

faster, 
Chimed to mine, 
Vernia. 

The years pass quickly — kiss me, sweet — 
And all that we have learned to love 
Will pass its way as dust to dust. . . 
Ah love, that's better, fevered lips. 
Scarlet burning on my cheek, flash of eyes, 
Touch of hands, heart to heart and breast 

to breast, 
Madly then. 



[25] 



YOUTH: BIBLIOGRAPHY 

And must life always be this drab affair, 
this furious trafficking for petty gold; the 
death of romance, beauty dull and cold; 
the crowning of the ugly and the passing 
of the fair? 

Youth following in the footsteps of Age, 
craven and beseeching; youth sycophant 
and humble- visaged. Is this the law of 
years ? Then speed revolt and sweet rebel- 
lion, bringing other deeds for other times. 
And grab at the sleek whiskers of Authority 
and pull them till the fossils squeal . . . 

Come, let us take Custom and put it on 
the fires of Love. Add a bit of Passion, 
sprinkle with Desire, and let it boil away 
to its heart's content. Who knows, perhaps 
in time it may be purged of its hypocrisy. .. 

And now it seem>s they have made pas- 
sion and love a fine thing, a thing of obste- 
trics and clinics, of doctors, lawyers and 
police; a thing to glut the papers and feed 
the tongues of the piazza-snipes. 

[26] 



Creatures of tradition they are, servants 
of what is. Youth knows not that sorrow. 
Youth eternally hates the sham, the law, 
the custom, spurning the taboos that bind 
and fetter; knowing but one law. Youth 
will be served and Age must carry the tray. 

I asked for romance and you gave me 
monogamy. I asked for love and you gave 
me the dead fruit of respectability. My heart 
hungered for beauty and you demonstrated 
its market value in dollars and cents. I 
asked for passion and you gave me ethics. 

But, alas, youth weaves a golden tapestry 
that even in the weaving is snatched away 
by the bitter hands of disillusion and flung 
into the gutter where its once radiant colors 
are mired and slimed with the rot of ugli- 
ness; and trampled upon by the savage 
heels of virtue and respectability. And 
ever the process goes on its interminable 
way, no matter how bright the dream that 
gave the pattern birth. 

[27] 



DEMOCRACY 

Oh, how I hate you and your petty niceties^ 
Your habits, customs, words and thoughts^ 
Defined, ordained, inevitable sun, to sun. 
''And this is good, and this is bad, and 

Bessie told, and the papers say." 
These are your little all-in-alls. 

The drab, the barren and the mean, 
The little toads that crawl on earth — 
''Yes, Johnny's doin' fine at school. 
And next week I should get that raise."' 
And so it goes. Each dreary fool 
Insensate to life's glamoured days. 

The smug, content, convention-bred, 
The miserable and sour. 
Twitching still to rules long dead. 
But proper every hour. 



[28] 



WISTARIA 

Ice in the river tonight and ice in my heart ; 
Seems but a week ago that it was May in 

- Enfield. 
Love, Youth and Spring hand in hand 

dov/n the Open Road, 
That Summer, dear, the fevered passion 

and the splendor of it all 
Forever written in my heart. 

Came Autumn and the slow fading of all 

that we held dear. 
Then Winter and our parting. 
There is ice in the river tonight 
And ice in my heart. 



[29] 



STREETS OF DISILLUSION 

Summer over. Back to the city, the city of 
sweet memories and remorse. The traffic 
swifter and noisier than ever, the ebb and 
flow eternal. Up and down the Avenue, 
searching unconsciously for the old faces, 
Claire, Marie, Faustine. Then it was vain, 
all had vanished down the years, vanished 
utterly and with all the poignancy of a fair 
day in Summer, a day that has held all the 
happiness of the heart but has gone its way, 
vagrant, elusive, hardly before we realize 
it or would move to hold it in its course. 
Faces and places and sounds and colors 
mingling in a vague confusion, the past be- 
fore my eyes as from a cinema screen . . . 
if only she had — ^but no, it would have 
proved as vain, she never knew the beauty 
in my soul or cared to know, the first fair 
wonder dream of love fading, fading away in 
the swift disillusion of the years. They would 
not listen to my songs, and she could never 
understand; they know not beauty in this 

[30] 



world and love is but a thing of purse. Was 
this the song, cherie? "Or rather put your 
arms about me and let us snatch our 
moment of joy from out the jaws of time. 
Sorrow vanished like a troubled dream that 
has too long lingered, and life forever 
fair..." 



[31] 



BOSTON, 1917 

The hours, dear girl, that were ours will 
always be ours. They were ours alone, 
dear heart, ours to cherish and live anew 
till the end of time. The world can take 
all else. The puritans may heckle us and 
blow our nam.es about like spray in the 
wind ; we may grow old and ugly and poor 
and wretched. But always we will have 
the beauty and the glory of those hours of 
youth, brave revelers in a bright day that 
can never darken. 



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